Why I Hate My Movember Moustache

Every November, men grow moustaches in an effort to raise awareness and money to fight prostate cancer. I jumped on board this year because:
a) preventing prostate cancer is a good thing and,
b) having an excuse to not shave for a month seemed like a good idea.

I knew I could grow a ‘stache because I had a glorious one back in my twenties. If was thick, full and a deep reddy-brown. It gave me the appearance of being a dashing cross between a World War I fighter ace and the Marlborough Man. The fact that none of the young ladies I knew felt that same way was lost on me, but that is a story for another day.

Needless to say, I was secretly excited to see how much more rakish and debonair I would now be with the return of my old friend in my forties. November First I shaved everything on my face but my upper lip and sat back to watch the magic happen. The first week was exciting as the promise of new upper lip hair growth seemed to fulfill my expectations.

However, midway through the second week it became clear that memories of the past should just stay memories. Now there is one week left to go to raise money before shaving the damn thing off. And I’ll tell you why:

• It itches. My God, how it itches. Imagine wearing a wool sweater that was full of sawdust and iron filings while driving on a long trip. Then, just when you find a comfortable sitting position where your skin is no longer being irritated, all the spider eggs in the sweater hatch.
• I look creepy. I’m not sure whether times have changed, but I don’t think you can pull off the moustache without looking like you just stepped out of grainy, low budget 70’s porn. You know the kind where the music was only a rhythm guitar and it wasn’t just the European women who hadn’t heard of waxing. It’s just a good thing I’m not a volunteer playground monitor.
• Food gets stuck in it. Anything liquid ends up as residue at the corners of my mouth: soup, chilli, pudding etc. It sounds cool to have a chance at a second meal simply by licking my lips, but that only increases the creepy factor (see above).
• I look older. In my early 20’s, the moustache made me look more mature. Now it just ages me, and now like a fine wine, more like a bad cheese. It may be the grey whiskers in it, but I suspect it has more to do with drawing attention to the thinning hair on top.

Fortunately, November 30 is six days away and it will be down the drain that night, literally. To make the suffering worth it (and the suffering of the people I work with who have to look at me), please make a donation to the Movember Prostate Cancer fight at my page, or to another guy (or supportive gal) you can find through your local page links.